In the novel Camille the author Alexandre Dumas Fils reveals the story of a woman’s life as a prostitute, along with her love affair, based in the mid-19th century in France. Although the narrative alone is captivating, it becomes more intriguing after discovering the correlation the author has with his own story. Dumas Fils gives the story depth by providing a frame story and an inner story, and significantly connecting the two, as well as connecting it to himself. He also expertly highlights issues that he himself relates to and has faced in his lifetime. Furthermore, the author introduces a female perspective to the story, in order to stress the call for women to be treated fairly in society. Dumas Fils uses his own experiences to bring …show more content…
The story begins with the first narrator, whose everyday life is disrupted when he comes across the deceased Marguerite Gautier’s apartment. He explores her home, and finds all her lavish lifestyle, which allows him to come to a quick conclusion. “For having begun to examine things a little carefully, I discovered without difficulty that I was in the house of a kept woman...the furniture was superb; there were rosewood and buhl cabinets and tables, Sevres and Chinese vases, Saxe statuettes, satin, velvet, lace; there was nothing lacking” (Dumas Fils 4). From this inference, the author creates an assumption that the narrator has been in the presence of prostitutes before, which helps him have a better understanding of what he will later be told. Armand, the second narrator, tells the original narrator his story about his love affair …show more content…
These problems stemmed from the life of Dumas Fils himself, which ultimately lead him to put the affairs down on paper. One of the most significant ones was how the women of this time desired all the luxuries and what they did to get their hands on them. The most evident example of this is prostitution, which is a focal point in the novel. Many of the women, including Marguerite, sell their love in order for a man to provide her with wealth and fortune. However, as proven in the story, this kind of life does not end well. “One the first page written in ink, in an elegant hand, an inscription on the part of the giver. It consisted of these words: Manon to Marguerite. Humility” (Dumas Fils 21). Like Marguerite, all prostitute's lives would be over as soon as they started to age, because no one wanted them anymore. When Marguerite is along and dying she has many regrets about the life she lived. “It is a sad life that I am leaving” (Dumas Fils 35). Dumas Fils shows the result of the sinful lives of kept women by creating the scene of Marguerite’s grave being dug up. “It was terrible to see, it is horrible to relate. The eyes were nothing but two holes, the lips had disappeared, vanished, and the white teeth were tightly set. The black hair long and dry, was pressed tightly about the forehead, and half veiled the green hollows of the cheeks” (Dumas Fils 57). Another
Kristoff uses many rhetorical devices to make points in his piece, “Our Blind Spot About Guns”. He compares the safety of guns to cars and tries to make a point that we should regulate them in the same way. One rhetorical device Kristoff used is visual persuasion. By showing a picture of a sign stating that guns were prohibited in Dodge City, a symbol of the Wild West, he used this visual to show the reader that gun prohibition has already been established throughout history. Visual persuasion is often used to convince the reader that the statements that are being forth are superior to the opposing side. It shows visual proof and is intended to make a point and persuade the reader to agree with the statement. Another rhetorical device that was used in the piece was a paradox. The author used this device when he said, “It’s pointless because even if you regulate cars, then people will just run each other down with bicycles,” (“Our Blind Spot About Guns” pg. 161) This statement is
During this time many women were forced into marriage, resulting in a great unhappiness. Both Kate Chopin and Guy de Maupassant state this lack of joy that was often experienced everyday by women. “It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (Chopin 68). If was as if Mrs. Mallard was sickened by the idea that her life and the way it was, would continue forever. Maupassant portrays Mathilde’s frustration in her marriage with the frequent use of the word “suffered” in relationship to her higher class wants and desires. “She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains” (Maupassant 59).
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The women described in the Lais of Marie de France often commit traditionally sinful deeds, such as adultery, murder, and betrayal. However, with a few exceptions, the protagonists often end up living happily with their beloved for the rest of their lives. The Lais advocate for situational judgement rather than general condemnation of specific acts, which can be seen through Marie de France’s treatment of sinful heroines.
What is apathy anyway? Apathy is the lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern for what is going on around us. We all experience apathy occasionally when we feel unmotivated or uninterested in our daily tasks. However, this is normal from time to time while constantly behaving without feeling is not. As a result of people wanting to fit in with others so they will be liked, being wasteful, and wanting others to get hurt they have caused a growing immense problem.
Traditionally, women have been known as the less dominant sex. They have been stereotyped as being only housewives and bearers of the children. Many interesting characters in literature are conceived from the tension women have faced with men. This tension is derived from men; society, in general; and within a woman herself. Kate Chopin‘s short story, “The Story of an Hour”, focus on a woman’s dilemma near the turn of the 19th century. Contradicting the “normal” or sad assumption of death, “The Story of an Hour” illustrates the significance of death representing freedom. The Story narrates about an hour of Louise Mallard’s life, as she tries to understand, and deal with her feelings of her husbands death.
In "A Sorrowful Woman" the wife is depressed with her life, so much so, "The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again"(p.1). This wife and mother has come to detest her life, the sight of her family,
All characters in the novel are living in a man’s world; nevertheless, the author has tried to change this world by the help of her characters. She shows a myriad of opportunities and different paths of life that woman can take, and more importantly she does not show a perfect world, where women get everything they want, she shows a world where woman do make mistakes, but at the same time they are the ones that pay for these mistakes and correct them.
Georges Duroy uses the emotions all the women in the book have for him to his own advantage. After Monsieur Forestier’s death he asks Madame Forestier to be his wife because he knew that she felt more than a friendship for him and that she felt “a sort of affection” and “mutual attraction” for him and he was able to become a part of a higher social class because of his marriage
The war on drugs has been talked about since Nixon brought it into play several years ago. It is not surprising that the war on drugs has been rather stagnant over the decades, with little positive outcomes. The war on drugs seems to only fill up the prison with people who in societies eyes have minor or nonviolent offenses. I understand that drugs in the community in a serious problem, however, if this same method hasn’t been working for years then why would it work now.
With each letter in Les Liaisons dangereuses, Choderlos de Laclos advances a great many games of chess being played simultaneously. In each, the pieces—women of the eighteenth-century Parisian aristocracy—are tossed about mercilessly but with great precision on the part of the author. One is a pawn: a convent girl pulled out of a world of simplicity and offered as an entree to a public impossible to sate; another is a queen: a calculating monument to debauchery with fissures from a struggle with true love. By examining their similarities and differences, Laclos explores women’s constitutions in a world that promises ruin for even the most formidable among them. Presenting the reader glimpses of femininity from a young innocent’s daunting debut to a faithful woman’s conflicted quest for heavenly virtue to another’s ruthless pursuit of vengeance and earthly pleasures, he insinuates the harrowing journey undertaken by every girl as she is forced to make a name for herself as a woman amongst the tumult of a community that machinates at every turn her downfall at the hands of the opposite sex. In his careful presentation of the novel’s female characters, Laclos condemns this unrelenting subjugation of women by making clear that every woman’s fate in such a society is a definitive and resounding checkmate.
From a feminist critical perspective, it is clear to perceive that her husband’s death was a release of freedom from her marriage. The text describes that at times, she did and did not love her husband. However, love had not mattered anymore because she was now free. Whether they loved each other or not, she would have still been his property. This restriction of freedom was no longer her cross to bear. The death of her husband would pave her a path for a new life.